Duncannon officials hope Appalachian Trail Community designation brings more people to historic town

Thru-hikers already know about Duncannon, often before they leave Springer Mountain, Georgia, on their 2,000-mile trek up the Appalachian Trail to Maine.

They know the Doyle Hotel will give them a room and shower for $25 a night; Goodie’s Restaurant will serve a breakfast worthy of their hunger, Mutzabaugh’s Market offers a free shuttle daily for their grocery resupplies.

Organizers of Saturday’s Duncannon Appalachian Trail Community Designation Event hope the official designation will attract other, more local people to the historic town and its surrounding natural wonders, which include the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers and other side trails. The event is being called “Saving Our Community from Nature Deficit Disorder.”

Duncannon has become one of 22 towns along the trail to achieve the designation from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the non-profit organization charged with preserving and managing the trail. The honor recognizes the borough’s welcoming nature and also offers some marketing tools which could attract more business to town. Boiling Springs is the only other designated Appalachian Trail Community in Pennsylvania.

Saturday’s day long event in Duncannon will include hikes, music, story telling, river trips, bird walks, trail stories, a race and the designation ceremony.

“What I’d like to see is more people from around here aware of the trails. More kids away from their computers and into nature,” said Mary Parry, organizer of the event. Parry is better known up and down the trail as Trailangelmary. In hiker parlance, a trail angel is someone who offers trail magic, unexpected kindnesses to weary travelers. She has become the face of Duncannon to the more than 2,000 hikers who pass through the town every year.

Parry started doling out trail magic in 2001, when she found herself temporarily homeless and living in the Riverfront Campground, another haunt of thru-hikers, as the people who spend four to eight months walking from Georgia to Maine are called.

Trailangelmary figured they needed more potassium, so started delivering bananas. She escalated to goodie bags of snacks, and in 2005 organized the Billville Feed, a three-day food extravaganza for hikers around the Fourth of July.

Even this week, as she watched artist Carol Boyd put the finishing touches on a mural of Appalachian Trail scenes on the side of a bridge at the edge of town, she yelled out to a hiker who seemed confused about the trail’s direction.

“Yo, hiker,” she yelled as she ran after Leif Middleton of the Falkland Islands, aka “Falkner.” After setting him straight, she offered him the use of her computer in her apartment above The Pub on Market Street.

Middleton said he was in town to look for a new headlamp, some food, and “to chill for a bit.” Many hikers stop in town, sometimes eating five meals a day and quaffing several Yuengling beers, the unofficial beer of the trail. They usually need showers, laundry and repairs to their gear.

Thru-hikers are an important part of Duncannon’s economy, according to Pat and Vickey Kelly, who have been feeding and housing hikers at the 107-year-old Doyle Hotel for 11 years. They know hikers come with good appetites. They have a photo of a hiker who went by the trail name “Zinc” chowing down on his fourth half pound hamburger, with fries, even though “he couldn’t have weighed 130 pounds,” according to Pat Kelly.

Duncannon is not big, but within easy walking distance are six places to eat, a Laundromat, several barber shops, an ice cream shop and other businesses which depend on hikers.

“We wouldn’t be open if not for hikers,” Vickey Kelly said.

Two of their guests Tuesday were Ralf Jeschke of Frankfurt, Germany, aka “Achey-Breaky,” and Charles Bissonnette of Montana, aka “Woodchuck.” Most thru-hikers acquire such trail names on their voyage.

Jeschke said he had seen a documentary on the trail in Germany and was intrigued. He said other hikers told him he had to stop at the Doyle.

“This is a unique place, it’s so different,” he said. “I like very much the old buildings, you see so much history on the trail.”

Bissonnette said he was taking a day off and catching up on calories in Duncannon. He had heard other hikers talk about the town, “and by the time I arrived, I was familiar,” he said.

Kim McKee of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy said the community designation is a relatively new program that recognizes communities that have been good neighbors to the trail. Any town seeking the designation must form a committee, provide educational programming surrounding the trail, recognize the importance of the trail in its land use planning and hold an annual event. Duncannon met all the criteria, McKee said.

The designation means business can be featured on the conservancy’s website and can use the “AT Community” brand.

McKee said Duncannon could become a gateway community for people who want to go on day hikes or spend a day on the river. Those type of clients “tend to have deeper pockets” than the thru-hikers, she said.

Trailangelmary thinks the designation could be good for Duncannon financially, but more importantly, she hopes it will help more people pay attention to nature.

She sometimes hands out a quote with her goodie bags. It reads: “I think God would be pissed if you walked down a field of flowers and didn’t notice.”

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